Could Finserve’s mKey App be Dead on Arrival?

Finserve, the young company that broke off relations with its parent company Equity (at least in the public eye), unveiled their second product just the other day, a keyboard with FinTech services built into it. At first glance, this sounds revolutionary, more feasible than a chatting app with mobile money built into it.

mKey is a keyboard app that offers financial services and lifestyle services such as bill payment, shopping, mobile loans, news and even gossip among other gimmicks. If that sounds overwhelming already, the waters run deeper. A few minutes after the launch of the app, complaints started coming in that the app would crash on a few devices. Personally, I experienced this problem, the app couldn’t run on the OPPO Find X, Nokia 6, Xiaomi Redmi 6A and even the Infinix Note 5.

Aside from failing to work on a number of devices, those who got it working complained of being overwhelmed by everything that was going on within the app. Users who thought they were just downloading a Kenyan-made keyboard, were surprised by the crowd they found within the product:

On top of the jargon, users complained that some of the features are not even complete, “Having everything at once can be a good thing. But in this case, it makes no sense. Some features don’t even work. The online shop section is a single page. YouTube on a keyboard app seriously? The News, Gossip sections, why?,” said Dickson Otieno of Tech-ish.

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The app also lacks basic keyboard features that Android users have become accustomed to such as predictive texting, swiping and customizable keyboard height. Some might say, a child does now walk in a day but this is 2018 and a 2018 child is different from the child of yesteryear. Finserve should have at least tried to compel users with basic features such as these.

Speaking of compelling, not everything is bad. YetuMoji, which are customized stickers that represent the Kenyan culture, seem to have won the hearts of many people. The stickers have been created to in a way that is relatable to Kenyans, with words such as “Bora Uhai” and “Nobody can stop reggae”: